The present utility model refers to a new modular container that can be interconnected, for multiple uses; its aim being to favor the conditions for the reusing of containers, especially of the type produced for its later discard.
As it is public and notorious, in the last decades the whole world has been flooded with products with disposable containers that, although they facilitate their employment and reduce derived operative costs of their recovery, (such as the collection, classification, cleaning, transport and storage, etc.) they constitute, on the other hand, one of humanity's bigger ecological problems since, once used it is not known that to do with them.
The problem is increased when such disposable containers are not structured in biodegradable material; by which its discardal is but the simple transfer of the containers from a place to another, without its raw material being degraded.
Within a wide variety of disposable containers--non degradable--that are known, the plastic bottles are without a doubt those that constitute the biggest volume, following them in order, the metallic cans.
Given that, to give an approximate idea of the quantity of containers that are discarded in the world, it is enough to point out the cans that are discarded in Argentina only, approximately 600 million cans are thrown per year. In the particular case of the city of Buenos Aires and the metropolitan area, during the year 1996 4.500.000 tons of garbage of the most diverse materials were collected; the plastics composing 15%, particularly under the form of containers.
It is so the final destination of the plastic bottles ends being that of the land fills and dumps, as well as those denominated "sanitary fillers", which produces a high proportion of environmental contamination, obstructing pipes and mouths of drainages and, mainly, forming true mantels or strata in all type of lands that do not even serve as effective filler material.
There usually exist three forms for facing the problem of the disposable containers (that are not biodegradable):
1--The destruction of the containers:
By means of mechanic shredding or crumbling: This process, although it facilitates the volumetric reduction of the containers, does not modify the impossibility of degradation of its material. PA1 By means of its burning: Maybe this process is the less recommended of all, since the combustion of some plastic substances (as PVC, for example), is highly polluting. PA1 By means of the action of chemo-destructive agents: Containers have been tried to be eliminated gathering them in big reservoirs where diverse chemical substances are overturned; but such processes had no acceptance, mainly due to the high operative costs, their limited yield; in certain extent, they are also pollutants (since they generate noxious vapors); and to the fact that, in general, they usually produce a residual material anyway. PA1 This resource, although useful, is employed in a limited proportion, fundamentally, it depends on the contained product (for example, the reusing of disposable containers is not allowed when foodstuffs and medicinal products are concerned). Also, the packed original product contaminates the new content, and it is not always possible to make the containers hygienic, particularly when they are of s frail structure (as for example, those produced in blowing processes). PA1 This resource is also acceptable, because it constitutes a form of use of the container; but it has several inconveniences: in the first place, because as from its first use it is polluted with diverse substances--inclusive those that constituted its first content--and that, to eliminate them, requires of relatively expensive processes; in second place, because the recycled plastic does not keep the properties of the original raw material and, therefore, it presents diverse practical inconveniences, such as premature aging, a greater fragility, a poor presentation due to the combining of pigments, etc.
2--The reusing of the containers:
3--The recycling of the material of the containers:
Due to the abovementioned, only a minimum proportion of plastic bottles end up being reused, or recycled.
The invention that is described in the present documentation, constitutes an ingenious resource that facilitates the reusing of disposable containers--such as plastic bottles--with a different utilitarian end.
In essence, it is related to the production of a new type of disposable container--so much in the lateral walls as in the top and bottom parts--provided of means of reciprocal interconnection with other containers of the same characteristics; so that, instead of throwing them, you can stimulate the accumulation of the empty containers to compose structures of all type and application, such as recreational, functional, ornamental, etc.
In this way, for example, in a constructive aspect, the bottles that can be engaged in the form of modular blocks that can constitute an interesting solution to the housing problem. So that the transparent empty blocks conform panels, or part of the same enabling the light to pass through the same, cooperating with the environmental natural illumination as well as to the saving of energy.
Also, in such an application, if to the modular blocks component of each container reused in this manner are left empty, (containing only air) they constitute a thermo-insulating structure; while if they are filled with sand, earth or another appropriate pulverulent or granulated material, this confers them a greater inertia and, in the event of being used a dark material, may also retain the heat of the solar rays to offer more comfort to a house during the night.
Similarly, the new containers can be interconnected to form recreational or didactic composition games,--circumstance that is valuable to give opportunity to children and youngsters to develop their genius--, and to contribute to the use of a non pollutant in their environment.
It is foreseen that the connections can be carried out forming structures so much straight as well as uneven, undulant, arched and, even annular segmented.
The engaging among each two consecutive bottles by their top end and by their bottom end, can be carried out with a threaded neck with or without their cover; including, also, said engagings, means of retentive fit that prevent the modular elements from disconnecting spontaneously.
In fact, the new system can be applied in everything that the imagination is able to conceive, returning to Man the capacity to imagine, allowing him to apply his genius in the conception of the most diverse structures and configurations, and to carry them out with his own hands, to transform disposable containers in utilitarian and aesthetic systems. That is to say, to make from the useless and harmful, an innovative and useful employment.